It's been a fairly action packed week. Friday was both the last day of my teaching internship (sort of) and my orchestra concert. Basically, I just ate lunch with the teacher who organized my internship as a sort of goodbye. It was actually really fun, just talking about teaching in general and the differences between the American and French school system (all in French! It was also great to have the opportunity to talk one on one with somebody besides my host parents in French for a whole hour). She's a super nice lady and was a bit of a friend to me here, but it was so frustrating working with her because she is so poorly organized. Admittedly, she had a lot of family issues this semester, but my internship ended up being much more hassle than it was worth at the end. The beginning, where I actually observed quite a few classes and got to teach a bit, was quite interesting though.
My orchestra concert was also quite a success. Sadly, none of my friends here could come because there was also an IES excursion to watch a soccer game the same night. And my host mummy had to work. But my host pappy came, which was right nice of him. It was in an AMAZING old church with a dome and crazy pretty paintings on the ceiling. Basically the coolest location for an orchestra concert I could imagine. However, sitting in a church for four hours is damn cold. It was a good concert though. We played with a choir for most of, and played La Messe de Couronnement de Mozart, a few Mozart sonatas, a piece by Schubert and a few other random things.
Afterwards I met up with some friends and went to the carnival that's been in Nantes for the last week or so. Just as awful and tacky as carnivals in the US, except that this one had a cotton candy stand with craaazy flavors. My friendsies got coca cola, peach and kiwi, which were all just sort of weird.
Saturday was our last official IES trip. It was just a baby day trip to Clisson, a very picturesque little town near Nantes that looks very Italian and has a lovely castle, and a vignoble to drink some wine. It was not a particularly action-packed trip, mostly a lot of lying around eating lunch, gamboling around the castle ruins (i love crumbly castles!) and trying different types of muscadet. But it was a lovely day and ever so much fun. Saturday night we had a little dinner party at Wendy's house, which involved lots of pasta, ridiculously messy chocolate frosted flake bars, and a 1.92 euro bottle of wine with lobsters on it.
Sunday= park and theatre. FUN.
Monday was also a big day, because it was our spectacle de theatre. I took a theatre production class, and monday was our big play. There are many a thing I could say about theatre, because it's been taking up alot of my life this semester, but I'll just say the play went really well. I shockingly didn't forget any of my lines, although I did have a good number of them written on my arms just in case. It was actually a surprising amount of fun, after the initial nervousness wore off. More about theatre later, possibly.
The rest of the week has been a lot of basking in the sun in the 75 degree weather. I am by far the tannest I have ever been in April (what an accomplishment, eh?). With no grammar classes this week, and spring break imminent, it's been lots of quality friend time.
Mummy and Paris tomorrow! Huzzah!
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